Now that is a tough one, I love music and in those days gone by I was really liking Roy Orbison. The first I heard he had died I was sitting in rush hour late traffic trying to get out of Houston on my way to Galveston for the weekend. The day was a week before Thanksgiving 1989. I spent the night at my Aunts place that was about an 6th of a mile from the beach and I slept in the spare upstairs bedroom. Damp and cold but I still lay my nose next to the window and cracked it just a bit so I could hear the light rain and fog hitting the roof.
Too many to name but groups Earth Wind and Fire and the Commodores before Lionel Richie went solo. Female Chaka Khan and Sada. Male Luther Vandross.
Elvis, Everly Brothers, The Coasters, Buddy Holly, Brenda Lee. I put a small fortune in nickels to listen to Poison Ivy by the Coasters on the juke box. We're talking the '50s here.
My favorites were Jim Reeves and Johnny Cash; but I also like Elvis, and many of the popular singers of the mid-1950’s-early-1960’s.
Maynard Ferguson. I saw him at D.A.R. Constitution Hall. I played trumpet, so--although my high school days were during the era of the Stones, The Who, etc--I was (and still am) more into jazz and big band music.
I graduated high school in ‘66, just as The Doors were getting started. Though they were not a factor through high school, they are the most memorable to me from around that time. I also liked the Yardbirds.
If you was to ask my wife, she'd say, without a doubt, all of the groups with Motown, as well as Jackie Wilson. As for me: The Moody Blues, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Safaris (Wipe Out), The Hollies, Steppenwolf, The Ventures, Lovin Spoonful, Led Zepplin and Jefferson Airplane.
I know I asked the question but it's a hard one to answer because there were so many good ones in the mid- to late-60s. Probably, I'd have to say Country Joe and the Fish, although there were also The Beatles, of course, and Herman's Hermits, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, and several others. The Grateful Dead were very good, and around then, but I didn't really get into them until after high school, probably because they were rarely played on the radio.
The only song I remember from Country Joe and the Fish was the Vietnam Song. I had Pink Floyd's, Dark Side of the Moon album.
Solo: The incomparable Leon Russell. Close second place, Joe Cocker. Band: The Eagles. Second place, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Country Joe was a crack up, Woodstock came and went and I was out over the Delta staying alive. His Vietnam song was a hoot. We had armed forces radio piped in and could just reach up and turn on the channel overhead, both the crew chief and myself had our own radios patched to everything the pilots had access to. Only thing we could not monitor or talk to was the Air Force, they would have to switch over to our radio frequencies, which they did monitor since they were always airborne after dark and close enough to give support. I never missed any music and always had first releases because guys coming home from leave always brought back the latest albums and usually taped everything. I had my own phonograph the last year and a half I bought it from a guy leaving to come home. Don't remember what I did with that player. It wasn't important that last month. I did sell my nice Colt Commander to a guy for 75 bucks. I bought the gun in Dallas a week before leaving for RVN. I did not want to be in a war zone without a weapon knowing how slow the Army was about everything then. So I paid 95 dollars new and today the gun is about 450 or higher for the same model. It had an aluminum frame and much shorter than a service 45 colt. Detectives loved it because you could hide it very easily. It went everywhere I went, I was never without it for 3 years, even slept wearing it. I guess that was why to hear people talk about me and others needing to take a hand gun course to own a weapon. Liberal bull s__t !! That last few months I loved that latest release from Tommy James and the Shondells, Crystal Blue Persuasion
Gosh, I can't just pick one. There were so many I liked! Three Dog Night Creedence Clearwater Revival Alice Cooper The Marshall Tucker Band Styx